


A Little Unsteady

by yet_intrepid



Series: fool enough to fight [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Forced Labor, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Pneumonia, Self-Destruction, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Shiro (Voltron)'s Missing Year, Shiro Is Responsible About Everything But Himself, Sick Character, Sick Shiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 03:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12424065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: When Shiro gets sick, Matt starts avoiding him.Not that it works that well. After all, their shared cell isn’t very big. Shiro tries his best to keep to his own corner, though, coughing into his elbow to prevent the germs from spreading.





	A Little Unsteady

**Author's Note:**

> I have strep, so I wrote some sickfic. Predictable.

NOW

When Shiro gets sick, Pidge starts avoiding him.

“No sniffles for me,” she proclaims as she settles at the far end of the breakfast table one morning. “Nope. Not doing it.”

“Fair enough,” says Shiro, voice muffled by his stuffy nose. After all, having the whole team sick would be a disaster. “But we’re still training today.”

“Uh, no way in hell?” says Hunk. “Dude, look at yourself. You look like a corpse.”

“Thanks, Hunk,” Shiro says drily. “But I’m fine, and we’ve got important work to do.”

But then that feeling comes back to his throat, the one he’s felt before. Before this morning, before the attack of coughing that had him sitting down on the bathroom floor, only half breathing.

He’s been sick like this before, and he doesn’t remember it. He only remembers that it was bad, really bad, and he’s trying to think of when and he’s trying to look like he’s fine and he’s trying, he’s trying, and then it hits him.

Shiro doubles over, face buried in his elbow as he coughs and coughs. It hurts deep in his chest and he wonders how this came on so fast. Space germs, maybe.

He hacks for a solid minute. When he straightens up, there’s mucus in his mouth, on the inside of his sleeve. And everyone is staring at him.

“Dude,” says Keith, standing dumbfounded in the doorway. “When did that start?”

Shiro shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says, and it’s not a lie. He feels awful ninety percent of the time anyway, whether physically or mentally or in ways he can’t identify. He doesn’t know when it started.

Keith quirks an eyebrow at him. “Go back to bed. Coran’s recalibrating the pods, so that’s not an option yet, but we can bring you breakfast. Hunk, have you succeeded at tea yet?”

“I’m not going back to bed,” says Shiro. “Training—”

“We can train without you,” Keith points out.

“And besides,” Lance chimes in from behind Keith, as Hunk starts to say something about the tea, “you’re going to get everybody else sick, man. That’d be a disaster.”

It _would_ be a disaster. Shiro can’t deny that. He’s about to try, though, until Allura frowns at him.

“Shiro,” she says, “I insist that you not contaminate the rest of the paladins.”

And Shiro knows an order when he hears one. Nodding in deference, he gets up and leaves the table, feeling (illogically, he tells himself) like a child sent to the corner.

 

THEN

When Shiro gets sick, Matt starts avoiding him.

Not that it works that well. After all, their shared cell isn’t very big. Shiro tries his best to keep to his own corner, though, coughing into his elbow to prevent the germs from spreading.

“This place isn’t sanitary,” Matt complains, as they settle down to sleep after their work details. “God. You’d think they’d realize that if they had an actual toilet system, they’d have healthier workers.”

“Sorry,” Shiro mumbles. His head feels like it’s splitting: not an unfamiliar feeling these days, considering the frequency with which he seems to get knocked to the floor, but somehow it’s almost worse when it’s not anyone’s fault. Being angry at a guard or a druid is easier than being miserable for no reason.

“Sorry for what,” Matt says.

“Being unsanitary.” Shiro thinks about lying down, but his nose is clogged even sitting up against the wall, and moving doesn’t sound very feasible anyway. The work details are better than the druid experiments, and better than the rumors he’s heard of arena fights and death games, but he’s still dead tired.

“Not your fault,” says Matt, but he still sounds kind of pissed. Shiro bites his lip. He doesn’t want Matt sick, either, but he doesn’t know what to do except cover his cough and stay as far away as possible. It’s hard, yeah. Yeah, he wants to curl his shivering body against someone warm. But it’s not worth it.

He’s hardly keeping up with his work. If he slips up much more, he’s going to get punished. And Matt just got a beating a few days back. Shiro can’t be the reason he ends up with another one.

Then he thinks of something. It’d be a gamble, yeah, but if he could protect Matt—yeah, he thinks. In the morning he’ll try it.

“Night,” Matt mumbles from across the cell.

“Night,” Shiro says in return. He settles against the wall, bracing for sleeplessness.

 

NOW

This is the problem, Shiro thinks: not contaminating the others means not seeing them. And that means being alone.

He shuts the door to his bedroom and leans against it, pushing his head against the frame a little harder than maybe he should. Somehow it seems to relieve the pressure that’s building, always building.

He coughs, too, but not as hard as before. Still hurts, though, and it’s more difficult than it should be to suck in air. Maybe he should just go into a pod.

But no, it’s probably not that bad. He’ll get some extra sleep and be back to training tomorrow.

Shiro’s knees are a little wobbly as he climbs back into bed. Fully dressed, shoes on—he feels naked if he’s not ready to leap into action at any moment. Vulnerable.

He feels vulnerable anyway.

But no. He’s not going to think about it, not going to think about the weird sensory memories that seem to live in his sore sternum. Not going to think about prison or loneliness or Matt—

Revision: this is the problem, that being alone means being with his own mind. Nothing to do, no one to take care of. Only him and his memories, half-unremembered.

Shiro pulls up his knees and settles against the wall of his room, pillow behind his head. He’s too congested to lie down, tired as he is. This will have to be enough for now.

 

THEN

This is the problem: the Galra are unpredictable. Shiro has tried his damnedest to figure out patterns, rules, anything to help him know what might be coming. But nothing’s ever really a safe bet.

He’s got a plan, yeah. Or sort of a plan. The idea is, the work detail supervisor he’s had lately likes to punish people with lockdown in solitary. If Shiro fucks up his work—which shouldn’t take much doing, worn out as he is—he’ll get a day or two of lockdown, and by the time he’s out, he’ll be less contagious. Less likely to get Matt sick.

It’s a decent plan, he thinks. This supervisor has put him on lockdown twice before, and both times he got moved back to Matt’s cell afterwards. He feels reasonably sure it won’t be a permanent separation. Unpleasant, yeah, but worth it. After all, Matt’s supervisor is a lot more physical. If Matt gets sick and messes up, that’d be worse, and it’d be Shiro’s fault.

So when the cell door slides open in the morning and the guard takes them both at the same time, Shiro panics a little inside. This isn’t normal. Normal is one guard coming for Matt, taking him to food prep, and one guard coming for Shiro, taking him to bucket-cleaning detail.

As they obediently trot down the hallway, hands cuffed behind their backs and the guard’s blaster at the ready, Shiro and Matt exchange glances. Shiro shrugs. Then Matt shrugs. Nope, neither of them knows where they’re going.

Shiro’s heart quickens. The arena? The druids’ labs? It could be anything, but his brain is too fuzzy to be properly terrified. He’s doing all he can just to keep walking, to fight off the coughs that would double him over.

As the guard pushes them through a doorway, Shiro can’t do it anymore. He stumbles, trips, and lands on his knees, coughing so hard he wonders if his lungs will collapse. His chest is tender as a new wound, every breath shaking it into flares of pain.

The guard kicks him. Shiro coughs worse. He wants to cover it, but he’s cuffed, and all he can think is how he’s going to get Matt sick.

The guard kicks him again, yells at him, and Shiro finally gets his breath enough to look up. They’re in a room he’s never seen before, with dozens of prisoners turning cranks like they’re human engines. Matt is uncuffed and being pushed towards one, is reaching for the crank that’s a little too high for him to comfortably grab.

Shiro closes his eyes. Even if he gives this his best shot, he’s still going to fuck it up. If the supervisor for this detail isn’t kind enough to send him off to solitary before the work day is finished, he doesn’t know how he’ll make it.

But when the third kick comes, he heaves himself to his feet anyway.

 

NOW

Shiro is half-asleep when the knocking comes.

He startles violently, smacking his head against the wall, and curses. Then he takes a minute to breathe, to orient himself. Castle, not prison. Castle, not prison.

“Shiro?” says Keith’s voice, filtering softly through the door. “You in there?”

“Yeah,” Shiro answers. It comes out croaky. “Come on in.”

 Keith does. He sets down two water pouches on the dresser, then sits on the edge of Shiro’s bed. “How are you?”

“Contagious,” says Shiro. There’s an ache in him deeper than the physical, something that longs for human touch and comfort, but he stays in the far corner of the bed. “Don’t stay long.”

Keith glares. “I’ll stay as long as I want, asshole.”

“Keith,” Shiro starts, but Keith interrupts him.

“I came to see if you need anything,” he says. “You think you could eat?”

“Allura doesn’t want me to contaminate you.” Shiro folds his arms, not sure where this stubbornness is coming from but too tired to fight it. “I’m fine.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “Hunk’s making soup. You want that?”

“Food goo’s fine. Whatever.”

“What do you mean, whatever?” Keith folds his arms, too, almost pouting. “Come on, Shiro. Let us take care of you.”

“I’m fine, Keith,” Shiro repeats. He tries to smile, tries to make it convincing. “Don’t—”

And there’s the coughing. Damn, Shiro thinks, as he buries his face in his elbow and tries not to cry at the force of every cough. He doesn’t, but it’s a near thing, and his body trembles.

Then there’s a warmth near him, a soothing hand on his back, and Shiro tells himself he should back away, shouldn’t get Keith sick, but the touch is so gentle and reassuring that he leans into it, cuddling against Keith’s shoulder.

“Hey,” Keith mutters. “Hey, hey, just breathe, all right? Yeah, like that. Good.”

“You should leave,” Shiro mutters.

“No way in hell,” says Keith, his voice as gentle as his arms. “The pods are almost ready to go, okay? Coran’s about finished with the recalibrations. If I have to go in for a bit too, it won’t hurt anything.”

Shiro sighs. He feels like he should protest, like he shouldn’t let himself get comfortable—but there’s no logical reason for him to feel that way. God, Shirogane, he thinks, get it together. This isn’t a big deal.

Except it is. It’s a huge deal. And he doesn’t know why.

 

THEN

Time is fuzzy here, even when Shiro’s not sick. But his guess is that they’re only halfway to the midday break when the crank he’s turning starts to feel impossibly heavy to his shaking arms.

Come on, he urges his body, not yet. Even though he’s hoping for solitary lockdown, the fear of angering the Galra still pumps through him. The supervisor here doesn’t seem as bad as Matt’s regular one, but Shiro’s still seen him hit several people for slowing down. And Shiro doesn’t want to get hit, not right now. He’s so tired, and his body is sending out a steady throb of complaints.

So not yet, he thinks, and forces himself to push harder. But he can feel the cough coming again.

When it hits, he crumples against the wall and cries. It hurts so bad and he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe. He’s dizzy, too, the world shaking, and he tries to cough quieter so the supervisor won’t notice but it’s no good.

“Shiro!”

It’s Matt’s voice, Matt’s hands on his arms, and Shiro pushes him away.

“You can’t,” Shiro rasps out, “Matt, no—”

“Shiro,” Matt says over him, urgent. “Shiro, he’s looking, you’ve got to get back to work—”

 “Lazy little fuckers,” shouts the supervisor. He’s there, towering over them, and he tosses Matt to the floor. “Get back to work, you fucking criminals, you fucking traitors—”

Shiro tries. But the cough doubles him over again and he can’t think about anything, anything but air and pain. From the corner of his eye, he sees Matt back at the machine, cranking the heavy handle but looking over his shoulder to see Shiro.

Shiro wishes he could apologize, but he can’t get words out. He can’t even get himself to stand up.

“—not even worth the air that keeps you alive,” the supervisor is yelling, and then he knocks Shiro down, too. Shiro hits the floor hard and gives up, curling into a ball. Solitary, he thinks. Please. Please.

“Guard!” The supervisor hasn’t kicked Shiro yet, so Shiro dares to peer upwards. The sentry clonks over from the doorway.

“Get this fucker to the soldiers’ lounge,” says the supervisor. “Let the men on break have a little fun.”

And Shiro hasn’t wept that many times in prison. He’s screamed, yeah; he can’t lay quiet for a beating like some of the prisoners can. He’s fought and yelled and bit his tongue bloody more times than he can count. But it’s only been a few times that he’s straight-up sobbed.

But as the guard hauls him up, cuffs him, drags him away—as he looks back over his shoulder to see Matt slumped over the crank, his body still working but his face devastated over Shiro’s punishment—as he realizes how much Matt cares, Shiro breaks down.

The sentry doesn’t care. He shoves Shiro to the floor in the soldiers’ lounge, relays the message, and turns his back as they tie Shiro up to beat him.

Shiro registers the pain as if from outside his own body. Hears the soldiers’ mocking laughter as if from corridors away. But hurting Matt, Matt who cares even when he shouldn’t, even when Shiro is nothing but a fucking liability—that’s what keeps Shiro weeping until they throw him back in the cell he came from.

When Matt comes back from work, drooping with exhaustion, he gathers Shiro up and holds him.

“Sorry,” Shiro says.

Matt brushes his fingertips across Shiro’s bruised shoulders. “Sorry for what, buddy?” he says, and this time Shiro doesn’t answer, doesn’t fight.

He just stays there. He just cries.

 

NOW

Keith gets Shiro soup. Gets him a box of the weird Altean tissues, too, and even more water pouches. When Shiro’s finished eating, they sit on the bed together, waiting for Keith’s comm to beep and tell them that Coran has finished with the pods.

Shiro tries to insist again that Keith not get himself infected, but Keith just laughs.

Then he sobers up, looks Shiro in the face. “When I was living in the desert,” he says, carefully, “I got sick pretty bad one time. I was all by myself and shit, and my generator was broken. It was miserable. You know?”

Shiro bites his lip. “I wish I could’ve been there,” he says. “I wish—”

“That’s the point,” Keith says. He keeps making eye contact, and Shiro feels shy, like he should duck away. But Keith goes on. “We couldn’t be there for each other this past year, and that kind of sucked for both of us.”

“Yeah,” Shiro agrees.

“So,” says Keith, “let me have this, okay? Let me take care of you, because there are so many times that I couldn’t. And I can’t change that, but I can make sure you aren’t sick or hurt or whatever all by yourself ever again.”

Shiro hesitates.

“Okay?” Keith repeats.

“Yeah,” Shiro says. “Okay.”

“I,” Keith says, and he seems a little awkward too. “I care about you, okay. Just let me care about you.”

“Okay,” says Shiro. “Okay.”

The comm beeps, and Keith smiles.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Ready,” Shiro says. He's a little unsteady as he stands up, but Keith holds him fast.


End file.
